


Of Youth and Beauty

by Pleistocene



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2018-12-18 22:14:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11883924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pleistocene/pseuds/Pleistocene
Summary: Written after I read openmouthwideeyes' lovely not-crack crack-fic 'from the ashes'.What Jaime makes of Brickon. I have totally avoided any mention of HOW they get to this moment because pffft.





	1. Chapter 1

The boy is taller than her, he realises.

A big honest boy, with his feet planted straight and solemn, who will respect his vows and honour her position as his wife.

And the Gods know she deserves that.

Suddenly he imagines them naked, the boy’s hips pumping into her roughly and her spread wantonly beneath him, pale as milk, and urging him on with her arms and hands and fingers, strong legs wrapped high around his hips.

The pain in what he realises is his heart is swift and bitter but he refuses to succumb to a self-pity to which he knows he has no right and sternly tells himself that he hopes there is joy in their coupling, because she deserves joy. Even though it must be with this barely shaven youth whose knowledge of women is probably gleaned from brothels and camp followers, she deserves joy. He is overwhelmed by how savagely he hopes the boy knows the softness of her centre and not just the tightness of her cunt.

‘Is it true you saved my wife from a bear, my lord?’

We saved each other from the bear, he thinks, I was just the idiot who leapt into the pit with her.

But his reply is silken and urbane. ‘Is that what she told you?’

‘She refuses to discuss it, my lord, but I’ve heard the tale and I’ve seen her scars.’

Is the young pup attempting to be territorial, Jaime wonders, and for a long moment weighs whether there is any means by which he can disingenuously ask the stripling if she’s told him where she got that neat little slice so high on her inner thigh, because he’s always wanted to know. And then they’ll both know if the lad’s honour will allow him to strike an elderly cripple.

Jaime wonders if they might both feel better if he did.

‘I’m sure you have, Lord Tarly,’ he feigns an indifference it is surprisingly hard to maintain, ‘but it wasn’t the bear she needed saving from, it was, as it usually is, men intent on doing her great harm for the sake of satisfying their own simple pleasures. The bear was just the most amusing means those particular men had found by which they could achieve that aim.’ Jaime favours the youth with his best and blandest face.

The young man’s brows knit as he obviously considers whether an ostensibly polite reply contained more insult than he’d expected.

Tyrion is right, Jaime tells himself, I’m an idiot. I want to hurt this courageous and utterly honourable young man who was willing to sacrifice his life but was persuaded not to for the sake his house. Who then did nothing more than agree to marry a perfectly eligible young woman, the equally honourable and courageous heir to another great house, and cement their joint allegiance to the future of the unreservedly fucked-up and Gods-forsaken concept of the ‘seven kingdoms’.

Moreover she is not, nor was she ever, mine to lose, he reminds himself bleakly.

And then he imagines her back arched, her head thrown back, and her eyes closed, as the man who is her husband brings her to ecstasy. Helpfully, his mind supplies the sound of her pleasure as a low keening wail.

‘Would you care to spar with an elderly cripple, my lord?’ Jaime enquires brightly.


	2. Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dickon learns something about himself. About himself and his wife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't intended to add to this little piece but this idea wouldn't leave, so here we are!

Brienne was not normally insensitive to pain in others. Her manner in dealing with the mundane injuries of combat and life had shown her husband she possessed a competent and pragmatic but still gentle touch when tending his various ills and hurts. Thankfully none had been serious enough for him to feel she genuinely feared for his recovery and he had found a quiet warmth in tending to her own injuries with equal care and respect. In fact he so valued his wife’s touch that he would allow no other to tend his injuries, which was why he had returned to their lodgings rather than seeking his brother Sam’s assistance for the shallow cut high on his thigh.  

But Dickon was not currently feeling particularly cherished or respected by his wife.

‘But I don’t understand why the two of you were fighting in the first place.’ Her brows were drawn together in consternation and her clear blue eyes genuinely puzzled. From his position seated on their bed, with his wife towering over him, Dickon was reminded of his mother posing much the same question, and with much the same expression on her face, the first time she’d had to intervene to prevent Dickon pushing his brother into the moat.

Dickon looked up at his, now that he looked at her, really quite intimidating with her armour and her sword and her spiky uncontrollable hair that she hated but he quite liked stroking while she slept, wife.

‘Umm.’

The silence in the room was not charged with anything more than a serious sense of confusion and Dickon was once more reminded how little he’d anticipated the shape his own life would take.

He couldn’t actually recall that he had ever spent any time thinking about the woman he would no doubt marry but, if he had, he had just assumed she would be a well born woman much like his sister; vivacious and pretty and well-mannered and dutiful. Although, to be fair, there was a wide streak of obstinacy beneath his sisters duty and he’d begun to realise his wife might share that very same obviously feminine tendency, and possibly to an even greater degree. There was no doubt his wife was well born, and she was certainly dutiful in her allegiance to their marriage and all its imperfect implications, but he had actually begun to hope that there was more to them than just duty and honour.

Recently, her more ardent responses to their coupling had begun to convince him that she at least did not find him totally repugnant as a lover.

I am her lover, he realised.

‘I am your lover.’ The words were out before he could stop them.

And then he found himself scared to meet her eyes, his own examining the ragged and slightly threadbare rug that covered the flagged floor beside the bed and which was slowly seeking sanctuary beneath. The small and obviously once brightly decorative rug was pushed askew by his scuffed and now much mended boots. That’s what I do, he told himself miserably, I just take up too much space and without even realising I push everything good and useful away.

His wife’s patched boots suddenly appeared next to his own and he risked leaning his forehead against the quilted gambeson covering the firm planes of her stomach. He heard and felt her stifled gasp of surprise but she did not retreat and presently her hand settled, with the delicacy of a butterfly’s landing, upon the short hairs at his nape.

‘The only lover I would take, my Lord Husband.’


End file.
